Hyvmine - Earthquake

Wim R. : Well, that is some piece of music that is fired at mankind, and an album like ‘Earthquake’ will demand some patience to fully appreciate it. Centre of Hyvmine is singer and guitar player extraordinaire Al Joseph. Joseph made name and fame as a virtuoso on the six strings and by releasing several instructional guitar DVDs. His talent was even awarded with a sponsorship by Ibanez guitars. The style of Hyvmine sounds like a cross between Dream Theater and Pearl Jam. The first, because of the progressive character of the music and song structure. Although Hyvmine does not change pace in songs them self as Dream Theater tends to do in a continuous way. The latter as an influence because the voice of Joseph leans towards the voice of Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder. But Hyvmine has a much more modern approach to music than the two aforementioned influences. They certainly have a style and identity of their own. Talking about identity, in the biography the musicians beside Joseph are not named. Even a search on the internet did not bring up their names. Strange and a bit sloppy. Besides all the guitar eruptions, there is also a moment of relative quietness with the title track ‘Earthquake’. Joseph sings in a more melodic way, which sounds pretty good. But the guitar antics shown by Joseph are the main ingredient on this album. The production, handled by Joseph himself, add to the listening experience. ‘Earthquake’ is a very nice debut album, or should I say the Al Joseph band?